Left column house ads

Twitter

Loft Peeping: Michael & Christina Hirtenstein

Architectural Digest‘s November issue features the One York triplex of Michael and Christina Hirtenstein. The 14,100-square-foot compound—8,600-square feet indoors, 5,500 outdoors—was combined from five units, purchased for “$17.16 million in 2009 after suing the developer” (according to the New York Post, which also said that during that drama they were renting at 25 Bond when Christina “came home early from a Hamptons weekend and found their decorator and his boyfriend in flagrante delicto in one of the bedrooms, she wanted to move out immediately.”

Architectural Digest, taking the high road, focuses on the efforts of architectural designer Thomas Juul-Hansen and [new] decorator Amy Lau.

••• Hirtenstein first considered the building when he saw a billboard with an image showing a swimming pool: “I’m a Pisces, so I love the water. I knew I had to have it.”

••• He had a structural column moved to stop “interrupting the flow of his double-height living room.” (This and the following quotes are from AD’s text, not of Hirtenstein speaking.)

••• “Most of the new furnishings […] were custom made.” The plaster relief is by artist Malcolm Hill.

••• The wood in the outdoor living room is solid mahogany, while the kitchen cabinetry is rosewood, and the master bed is rosewood and tamo ash.

••• “Christina’s dressing room”—don’t miss the photo of it—”boasts a handblown glass chandelier by jGoodDesign above a rosewood-and-leather island with a built-in seat; the shelves and closets are backed with gold mirror.”

AD’s print edition had more photos than the slideshow online, so I bought the issue and scanned and scanned and scanned—if you want to see the “before” ones, you’ll have to buy the magazine yourself. As I mentioned, the text is by Mayer Rus (read it here), while Michael Reynolds produced the article. The photos are by Thomas Loof; click to enlarge, and the scanned ones are grainy because who wants to spend money on a new scanner?

Update: A reader alerted me to this delightful tidbit from the Post article: “His next Manhattan purchase was pure serendipity. He and his wife had separated and he’d moved to a $20,000-a-month, three-bedroom, 67th-floor rental at the Park Imperial on Broadway and 56th Street. “It’s the best building no one talks about,” he says. “Better views than Time Warner. You brought a girl back there: panties off.”

2 Comments

They can call it One York all they want— but its Canal Street warts and all..So for for all their beautiful square footage, rosewood cabinets and grand closets….when they step outside their “compound” they are shoulder to shoulder with the unwashed mass of pedistrian gridlocked midwestern tourists; knee deep in knock off bags, ways to use the “F Word” tshirt kiosks, and quite likely loudest and most congested traffic in the city. But thanks for the photos — they are magnificent!